The Reformed Doctrine of Salvation

Reformed confessions also agree with the Bible (Jer 17:9; Rom 5:12-19) that “through the disobedience of Adam, original sin is extended to all mankind; which is a corruption of the whole nature, and an hereditary disease, wherewith infants themselves are infected even in their mother’s womb, and which produceth in man all sorts of sin, being in him as a root thereof; and therefore is so vile and abominable in the sight of God, that it is sufficient to condemn all mankind” (Article 15, Belgic Confession).

How can Reformed denominations defend important truths like justification by faith alone and the authority of the Word of God, yet, tragically, have so many religious but unconverted people on their membership roles? When the Reformers separated from the church of Rome at the time of the Reformation, they rightly rejected many of Rome’s errors, blasphemies, and heresies, and they correctly affirmed, “There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ. Nor can the Pope of Rome, in any sense, be head thereof, but is that Antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalts himself . . . against Christ and all that is called God” (Westminster Confession, Article 25). In this they agreed with the Bible, which, in contrast to the true church, the pure bride of Christ (2 Cor 11:2; Eph 5), identifies the religious system centered at Rome as a “great whore . . . full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication,” indeed, states that the Roman religion is “the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth” (Rev 17:1-6). Unfortunately, the Reformers did not abolish one of the central errors and corruptions of the false religion they protested against—infant baptism. By not eliminating this heresy of Antichrist, the Reformed have allowed the doctrine of salvation to be confused.

The Bible teaches that baptism is “the answer of a good conscience toward God” (1 Pet 3:21), and thus it is “he that believeth [that] is baptized” (Mar 16:16; Ac 2:38, 41). The Biblical order is that one is to first “hear” the gospel preached, then “believe” (Rom 10:14-15; Ac 18:8), and only after having “gladly received [the] [W]ord [be] baptized” Ac 2:41; 8:13). The question, “[W]hat doth hinder me to be baptized?” is answered in the Bible, “If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest,” and baptism is given only to those who can say, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God” (Ac 8:35-38). In the Bible, those who were baptized had first brought forth “fruits meet for [befitting] repentance” (Matt 3:6-8). Since infants do not “know to refuse the evil, and choose the good” (Isa 7:16) and “cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand” (Jon 4:11), much less understand and believe the gospel, confess their sins (Matt 3:6), and show fruits of repentance, they cannot be Biblically baptized.

Sometimes people who do not wish to repent of the heresy of infant baptism, but do not want to admit that it is merely a human tradition added to the Word of God, attempt to argue in favor of it because there are several records of entire households receiving baptism in the Bible (Ac 16:15, 33; 1 Cor 1:16). Defenders of infant baptism assume that these households had infants, and the infants were baptized. However, in each example, it is never stated that the households had infants, and it is actually obvious that believer’s baptism was practiced. In Acts 16:31-34, all in the household had the “word of the Lord” preached to them, and having received Christ by faith, the whole household “rejoiced, believing in God” (v. 34). In Acts 16:15, the head of the house was a rather wealthy unmarried woman doing business far from her home, and her household consisted of servants who responded, as she did, to the gospel. Do babies make good household servants? In 1 Cor 1:16, the household of a man named Stephanas was baptized (1 Cor 1:16), and the members of the household “addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints” (1 Cor 16:15). Do infants go around performing all kinds of Christian ministry? Just about the only other passage in the New Testament that those who practice infant baptism try to employ in its favor is 1 Cor 7:14, a verse that does not use the word baptize or have anything to do with baptism at all. The verse simply teaches that when one believing person is in a household, an unbelieving spouse, and infants or unbelieving older children, are “sanctified” by the believer’s presence. This simply means that unbelievers participate in some of God’s blessing on account of the presence of the Lord’s favor on a believer in a household (cf. Gen 39:5). This sanctification takes place the very moment the first household member is saved; it does not wait until later when infants are supposedly baptized. 1 Cor 7:14 no more proves that infants are baptized than it does that the unbelieving spouse in the verse is baptized without his or her consent. Finally, advocates of infant baptism argue that baptism replaces circumcision, and since infants were circumcised in the Old Testament, babies are to be baptized in the New. However, neither Christ nor the apostles ever stated that baptism replaces or is equivalent to circumcision. The Jewish and Gentile Christians who received both baptism and circumcision in the New Testament (cf. Ac 10:45; 16:3) obviously did not think the one replaced the other. Furthermore, only male babies were circumcised, but baby girls also receive infant baptism in the denominations that practice it. The New Testament, using Abraham as our pattern (Rom 4:23-25), also states that circumcision was a “seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised” (4:11). If one wants to argue that circumcision is replaced by baptism, then the New Testament pattern would be faith before baptism, as Abraham believed before he was circumcised, and baptism would not be a means of receiving salvation, but only a token or sign (Gen 17:11) of a previously received “righteousness of faith” (Rom 4:1-25). However, the fact is that the spiritual equivalent in the New Testament of circumcision is not baptism, but being born again (Phil 3:3), a spiritual act that happens “without hands” (Col 2:11) and which is a prerequisite to baptism (Col 2:12). There is nothing in the Bible that teaches infant baptism. It is an error, a false human tradition that the devil has used to deceive millions.

Those who practice infant baptism inevitably confuse the gospel by doing so. In any particular location, the “church of God [has as members] . . . them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints” (1 Cor 1:2; Col 1:2), so only people who have been justified by faith, only saved people, are fit church members. Since baptism adds one to the membership of the church that authorizes the ordinance (Ac 2:41, 47; 1 Cor 12:13), but true churches require the new birth for membership, infant baptism is really only consistent with the heresy that the salvation of babies is somehow connected to the application of water to them. At the very least, infant baptism leads people to think that they do not need to be converted when they get older, while the great majority of “Christian” groups that practice it say that sins are actually removed at the time of baptism.

The Reformed claim that God “hath instituted the sacrament of baptism . . . which serves as a testimony to us, that he will forever be our gracious God and Father” (Belgic Confession, Article 34). A sacrament is supposedly a “holy ordinance instituted by Christ, wherein, by sensible signs, Christ, and the benefits of the new covenant, are represented, sealed, and applied to believers,” so that “sacraments become effectual means of salvation” (Westminster Shorter Catechism, 91, 92). However, the Bible never says that baptism or the Lord’s supper “seal” or “apply” salvation to anyone. The word seal appears 16 times in the New Testament, and none of its appearances indicate that a “seal” gives a particle of saving grace to anybody. The word sacrament never appears in the Bible. The Reformed did not go far enough when they reduced the seven sacraments invented by the Antichrist-led church of Rome to two sacraments. The truth is that there are no sacraments, and the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper do not do anything to justify anybody—salvation is by faith alone (Rom 3:28).

Absolutely nothing in the Bible either affirms that baptism is the way to be born again or teaches infant baptism. The Reformed claim that they “reject all mixtures and damnable inventions, which men have added unto, and blended with the [ordinances], as profanations of them: and affirm that we ought to rest satisfied with the ordinance[s] which Christ and his apostles have taught us, and that we must speak of them in the same manner as they have spoken” (Article 35, Belgic Confession). This is in accord with God’s command, “Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God . . . What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it” (Deut 4:2; 12:32; Prov 30:6; Matt 28:19-20; Rev 22:18-19). If the Reformed were consistent with their own confessions, they would reject infant baptism just like they reject infant communion, and just like they reject many other of the damnable inventions of the church at Rome. The error of infant baptism was recognized at the time of the Reformation by men like Zwingli, the father of the Swiss Reformation, who said, “Nothing grieves me more than that at present I have to baptize children, for I know it ought not to be done,” and “if we were to baptize as Christ instituted it then we would not baptize any person until he has reached the years of discretion; for I find it nowhere written that infant baptism is to be practiced” (see pgs. 198-199, The Reformers and Their Stepchildren, by the Christian Reformed author Leonard Verduin). By retaining infant baptism—as Zwingli did, against what he knew the Bible taught—the Reformed undermine the gospel and confuse justification by faith alone. Dear Reformed friend, you must face the fact that your infant baptism did absolutely nothing to contribute to your salvation—so far from helping to save you, or from proving that you were somehow already saved or destined to be saved, it was not true baptism at all, but actually an abomination to God.

Furthermore, when believers are baptized, immersion, not sprinkling or pouring, is necessarily practiced for Biblical baptism. One who is baptized is “planted together in the likeness of [Christ’s] death” and “shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection” (Romans 6:5); baptism pictures the death, burial, and resurrection of the Savior, as well as the death of the believer’s old life and his resurrection to new life in the Lord Jesus. Only immersion pictures death, burial, and resurrection. Does anyone bury a person in a graveyard by pouring or sprinkling a little dirt on his head? Then how can one be “buried with [Christ] in baptism” (Col 2:12) by pouring or sprinkling a little water on him? Why did people go “down . . . into the water . . . and . . . come up out of the water . . . [when] baptized” (Ac 8:38-39; Mat 3:16) in the Bible if only a little water was poured or sprinkled on the head? Furthermore, the Greek verb baptize means to dip or immerse, not to pour or sprinkle. The father of Reformed denominations, John Calvin, acknowledged this, saying that “it is evident that the term baptize means to immerse, and that this was the form used by the primitive church” (Calvin, Institutes, 4:15:19), while the first of the Reformers, Martin Luther, said that “baptism is . . . when we dip anything wholly in water, that it is completely covered over. . . . it should be thus, and would be right . . . [for] any one who is to be baptized, [to] be completely sunk down into the water, and dipped again and drawn out” (Opera Lutheri, I. 319, cf. pg. 108, Christian, J. T., A History of the Baptists, vol. 1). The Reformers themselves acknowledged that the Bible teaches immersion is New Testament baptism. Do we dare change what God Himself has commanded to picture His Son’s death, burial, and resurrection to practice instead a corruption inherited from the false religion of Rome? Do we change the ordinance of God to that of a system of religion that the Holy One calls “the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth” (Rev 17:5)?

No church, including those within Reformed denominations, can be a true church if it confuses the gospel by not demanding that the children of believing parents come to a place where they see themselves as lost and at a point in time repent and believe the gospel. All who do not preach this therefore fall under the dread curse of Galatians 1:8- 9: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.” Furthermore, Reformed denominations cannot be Christ’s churches because they reject Biblical baptism, the immersion of the believer, to practice instead the heresy and human tradition of sprinkling or pouring water on the head of infants. Furthermore, Reformed denominations cannot be Christ’s churches because they did not exist for 1,500 years after Christ started His church in the first century. The Lord Jesus said “the gates of hell shall not prevail against” His church (Mat 16:18), but rather that God would receive “glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages” (Eph 3:21), and He would be with His churches “alway, even unto the end of the world” (Mat 28:20). If Reformed denominations are Christ’s churches, then the Son of God failed to keep His promises to keep true churches in the world for the first three-fourths of Christian history! Furthermore, when people who adopted Reformed doctrine in the era of the Reformation started new churches, they separated from the church of Rome—which they rightly saw as headed by “the Pope of Rome . . . that Antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition” (Westminster Confession 25:6). The Reformers and the first generation of Reformed church members received baptism from a religion they correctly saw as headed by Antichrist. Unless the church of Antichrist can perform valid baptisms, the Reformers and the first members of the denominations they started were not baptized, and thus not truly church members. If they were not church members, they could not baptize anyone else. For the Reformed denominations to be Christ’s churches, either unbaptized people must be able to perform baptism, or the church of Antichrist can legitimately administer the ordinances!

In contrast, churches that believe and practice like modern day Bible-believing Baptists, churches that defend the true gospel of justification by faith without works and practice the baptism only of believers, have existed from the first century until today. In the words of Dr. J. J. Durmont & Dr. Ypeig, Reformed historians specifically appointed by the State of Holland to ascertain if the historical claims of the Baptists were valid, the Baptists “descended from the tolerably pure evangelical Waldenses. . . . They were, therefore, in existence long before the Reformed Church. . . . We have seen that the Baptists, who were formerly called Anabaptists . . . were the original Waldenses; and who have long in the history of the Church, received the honor of that origin. On this account the Baptists may be considered the only Christian community which has stood since the Apostles; and as a Christian society which has preserved pure the doctrine of the gospel through all ages.” The Christian Reformed scholar Leonard Verduin stated, “No one is credited with having invented the Anabaptism of the sixteenth century for the simple reason that no one did. . . . There were Anabaptists, called by that name, in the fourth century.” (pg. 189-190, The Reformers and Their Stepchildren). Churches that believe in salvation by faith and practice believer’s immersion never needed to separate from the church of Rome because they never were part of that false religion. They are older than the church of Rome and than all the Protestant denominations. Their Biblical doctrine and practice proves what is confirmed by the testimony of history—they are the churches founded by the Lord Jesus Christ. All other religious groups are guilty of schism and division from the Lord’s true churches. All other groups—including the Reformed denominations—thus have no Divine authority to baptize, carry on the work of God, or exist at all.

Dear Reformed friend, the Bible commands, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves” (2 Cor 13:5). Have you ever come to a particular point where you saw yourself as lost, and consciously repented and believed on the Lord Jesus Christ? If not, you are currently on your way to hell, and, no matter what else you believe and do that is good and right, you will certainly be damned unless you repent. You should, right now, submit to the Biblical truth that you have never yet been saved, and immediately come to Christ for salvation. If you reject His Word and insist that you are saved, or that your baptism or previous life is in any way pleasing to God, you will suffer in unquenchable fire for all eternity. If you forsake all confidence in your previous religious actions and good works and come to the Savior as a worthless, empty-handed sinner, with nothing but your black heart and your innumerable sins, He will receive you and save you by His free and sovereign grace. The Lord Jesus calls you to come to Him (Mat 11:28), and promises, “He that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). The Lord commands you to come to Him right now: “[B]ehold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor 6:2). If you are saved, God commands you to submit to believer’s immersion, join and faithfully serve Him in one of His true churches (Heb 10:25). The Son of God said, “Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Mr 8:34). Although people are not in any way justified before God by their works, there are no examples in the Bible of true Christians who refused to follow the Lord Jesus and who stubbornly refused and rejected believer’s baptism (cf. Ac 2:41-42; Mr 16:16). Separation from all religions that practice heresy, including infant sprinkling or pouring, is the plain command of the King of heaven. “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty” (2 Cor 6:17-18). “[M]ark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them” (Rom 16:17). “[H]ave no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Eph 5:11). The Lord Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (Jn 14:15). Immediately separate from Reformed religion, and attend, be baptized, and serve joyfully in a Bible-believing and practicing Baptist church.

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